The best satire is satire that feels almost plausible, and therefore credit must go to The Ringer’s Michael Baumann for his Twitter joke about Trevor Bauer’s ostensible recovery process.

Trevor Bauer says that the doctors' timeline for his return is based on outdated mainstream medicine and he's begun a course of blood transfusions and colloidal silver to rid his body of CIA nanites. He anticipates missing two starts, three tops.

That’s good! It’s obviously a joke, but it’s the kind of joke that sends up Bauer’s eccentricity and, uh, possible distrust of the government. But surely no one could read Baumann’s tweet and think it was actually serious reporting!

Except for, no, MLB Network did exactly that, sharing a screengrab of the tweet and presenting it as a report last night:

Deadspin has video of the moment. Baumann immediately pointed out the actual nature of the tweet:

I've had more than one person react like this is real and I kinda feel bad but I also kinda feel like it proves the point I was trying to make about Trevor Bauer. Poe's Law is a fickle mistress. https://t.co/avDgACM39v

Because Trevor Bauer has rabbit ears bigger than the antennae on his drones, he immediately caught wind of the incident, and he was not pleased.

For anyone who thinks this is actually true, it’s not. Saw this on the crawl of espn. Couldn’t hear the audio so not sure how they’re presenting it but it is not true at all. @espnhttps://t.co/cwITJLrrxi

And you know what? Trevor Bauer has a rare point! He also mentions ESPN ran with it too, and if they did (even just on the Bottom Line) that’s just as unfortunate as MLB Network. This isn’t even falling for a fake account, this is misreading an obvious joke from a baseball writer who isn’t even really a newsbreaker. Because it’s Trevor Bauer, though, he had to press the issue further:

Hey @MLBNetwork and @espn I would like public statements on social media and on your networks clarifying that the information you wrongly reported as fact earlier regarding my recovery timetable and process is false and not a quote from me. The report is damaging and absurd.

It’s not really damaging for Bauer as much as it is for MLBN and any other network who ran with it. They’re the obvious butts of the joke in this scenario. But Bauer has an intense lack of faith in the media, so he’s currently setting the record straight (even though, again, it’s already straight.)

I would except then all this bs about me would be floating out there and affecting my reputation among my peers and people in the industry. If I could trust media to write and report accurate information I wouldn’t need to be on here to tell people the truth

That’s right media! If anyone’s going to damage Trevor Bauer’s reputation among his peers and people in the industry, it’s going to be Trevor Bauer himself! For his part, Baumann seems pretty annoyed at how it’s spun out of control:

And there we have it. It was a joke so well-measured that it managed to make it to air, where it got back to the original subject. We’ll have to wait and see if Trevor Bauer gets those apologies he asked for.

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Those surveyed by Deloitte averaged three streaming service subscriptions, but many weren't thrilled with the numbers of services they had to subscribe to get what they want. That's worth noting for sports, considering the fragmentation in the sports streaming landscape.

The management services provider for two West Virginia sports books and the state's online betting app is in a dispute with a third-party technology vendor, which means those books won't be able to offer early-round March Madness betting.